Yes, I definitely had fun that 2011 off-season. Meanwhile, I couldn’t do any work at the team facility with the Patriots because there was an NFL lockout, which prevented me from getting inside the building. All team activities were shut down. We didn’t have any off-season workouts, practices, or camps at all until the lockout ended in late July. But I made sure to get my workouts in elsewhere.
Orlando Vargas, my former teammate at Arizona, is a beast of a workout warrior and I spent a lot of time in Arizona training with him. Working out with Orlando, Chris, and Dan that off-season had me in the best shape of my life. Instead of working to get my legs back or my speed and agility back, I was feeling 100 percent after the season and was now working to get bigger, faster, and stronger than I had ever been before. It was a monster difference between working to get ahead and working to come back.
It was also night and day between this August and the last one, in 2010. That year in training camp, I had been overwhelmed. I was trying to get the playbook down, and I was trying to get used to the speed, power, shiftiness, and technique of the defensive ends I had to block. I was learning how to read defensive coverages to find the open area. I was learning how to run routes in the precise way that Tom wants his tight ends to run them. I was trying to earn Tom’s trust to be his go-to guy. I was trying to get used to the speed of the defensive players covering me. I was trying to get used to traveling over the long haul of the preseason, a sixteen-game regular season, and then the postseason. I was trying to understand how to prepare myself physically and mentally to play each game and above all this I was trying to learn the ropes of being an NFL player with the New England Patriots—the most disciplined and the best-coached team in the NFL. All of those challenges took a lot of time, but I felt confident that I now knew what I was doing. Except perhaps for one thing. I wasn’t sure I had earned Tom’s trust to look to me when he needed the big play.
Coming off a healthy rookie season and off-season of great workouts, I was confident in myself. Now, I pride myself on being a humble guy and I never would have said this publicly, but I told my close friend John Ticco, whom I grew up with as a kid, that I was going to have the best year any tight end ever had and break every NFL tight end record there is. To the media, I always do my best to show humility because I believe in being humble with what you say and in how you treat people. I’m the same guy in private, but I do tell my close friends and families what I want to accomplish. I was trained to be the best tight end ever since I was a boy. I felt ready to work for it and do it. To be the hands-down best ever, you have to win a Super Bowl. That’s the ultimate goal and I figured if I had my best season, we could indeed win it all.
Day one of making that happen started with training camp. As I said, the lockout ended in July, and since I trained so hard with Orlando, Chris, and Dan, I was off to a fantastic start. My blocking was at an all-time high, I felt superstrong, I had my technique down, and I was quick enough to handle anyone. On passing plays, I was constantly getting open and catching everything thrown my way. I couldn’t wait for the first preseason game because I wanted to let the league know that this was going to be my year. I really believed I was destined to have a monster year and help my team win the Super Bowl. There was no doubt in my mind we were going to win it all; none.
Our first preseason game was against the Jacksonville Jaguars, and I didn’t get one pass thrown my way. I had no catches in the second preseason game, against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. I had one catch in the third preseason game, versus the Detroit Lions. I had no catches in the fourth preseason game, against the New York Giants. So throughout the entire preseason, I had one catch for seven yards and no touchdowns. That sucked!
I would have understood if it was like last year, when if I didn’t get the ball, it was because I hadn’t earned it the week before in practice. This time I was having great practices and was very frustrated that the ball wasn’t coming to me. I didn’t say anything to Tom or the coaches because it was only the preseason. I told myself and believed that if I was open in the games, then when it mattered and Tom needed to make the play, he would throw it to me. I understood that Tom had Wes Welker, Deion Branch, and now Chad Ochocinco to throw to also, but I didn’t want to be lost in the shuffle. I just wanted my fair share, and if I got open and made the play, I would deserve it. I wanted only what I would earn. I didn’t want the ball because I was his best friend or whatever. I had faith in Tom. Still . . . only one catch for seven yards in four preseason games . . .
I told myself it’s all about the season opener against the Miami Dolphins. It was Monday Night Football on September 12, 2011, and emotions were high. The game was at Miami and I was hyped. I blocked well, ran great routes, was unselfish, and as I believed, Tom did right by me. I wasn’t his go-to guy yet, but I wanted to show Tom that if he threw it to me, he wouldn’t regret it. I came through with six tough catches for 86 yards, including a ten-yard touchdown. We won and were off to a good start.
The next week we punished the Chargers. It was a superphysical game and I had four big catches for 86 yards, including two touchdowns. We beat San Diego, 35–21.
We were 2-0 when we went up against my hometown Bills on the road at Buffalo; they were also 2-0. This was for the lead in the AFC East division. I was beyond fired up, the crowd was crazy loud, and the atmosphere was insane. I scored two touchdowns and had seven catches for 109 yards and it should have been my dream come true, but instead it was a nightmare. We had them down 21–0 in the second quarter but let them come back to beat us, 34–31. I was pissed off and it really hurt. After the game my mom told me she never saw me so angry. We were now 2-1 and tied for second place in our division. We had won ten straight regular-season games and now this was a big step back.
We came back to win the next two games and then had our bye week. During my week off, I caught up with a good friend of mine. He introduced me to a girl he was dating. It turned out she was a well-known adult film star. I thought it would be funny to take a private picture of her with my jersey. Next thing I know, it’s all over the Internet that I’m hanging out with her and all that. She was my friend’s girl, not mine. Nothing happened between us but a picture. It blew up into a big story. When I saw our owner, Mr. Kraft, I apologized to him for causing any embarrassment to the organization. He gave me some great advice, that there will be people out there trying to promote themselves off your name and that you need to be careful about that. I appreciated his advice. The guy is a huge winner with a great family. This one was my fault because it was my idea to take the picture. Live and learn.
After the bye week, we lost the next two games, to the Steelers at Pittsburgh and then home at Foxborough to the Giants. I thought we had the Giants game won when late in the fourth quarter, with 1:36 to go, I scored a fourteen-yard touchdown. I thought wrong. The Giants came right back, and with the help of the referees on a big pass-interference call, they got the ball at the one-yard line for first and goal with thirty seconds left. They scored and beat us. We were now 5-3. The year before we lost only two games the entire season, and now we had three losses only halfway through this one.
We were at a crossroads. I had six touchdowns midway and we had three losses at the eight-game mark—that wasn’t Super Bowl caliber. I knew I could do more. I felt ready to explode and take over. The next game against the Jets, I had eight catches for 113 yards and two TDs for a big win on the road, 37–16. Then we had a dominant game against the Chiefs in which I had two crazy touchdowns.
The Chiefs game was a big one for me because I showed I was faster than the defense expected and tough to tackle. I scored on a 52-yard touchdown where Tom threw it to me as I was crossing the middle and then I ran 35 yards down the sideline. The defensive back had the angle on me and hit my legs, thinking I would go down or out of bounds, but I ran through the hit, kept my balance, and raced in for the score. Then on the next touchdown, I caught the ball at the twenty-yard line, broke through the tackle, and knew I was going to get hit low in the knees and out of bounds before I could get to the goal line, so I dove to reach the ball across the goal line. I always wanted to jump in the air and fly across the goal line and it was my best chance to score with the linebacker coming at me. It got crazy when he took my legs out and I flipped over across the goal line, which was pretty cool. I landed on the back of my neck and rolled over. Touchdown! I got up okay and then slammed the ball for my signature Gronk spike.
That was great for my chemistry and my confidence with Tom. I started to be able to read what he was reading on the field and think what he was thinking. I was anticipating what he was going to do and we were developing a special connection between us. I showed him mad consistency and became his go-to guy.
I now had 10 touchdowns in 10 games, and the all-time touchdown record for a tight end in a single season was 13. We were 7-3 and back on track.
We just kept rolling from there. We beat the Eagles at Philly and I caught my 11th TD. Then we beat the Colts in Foxborough and I scored three more TDs. I thought my third touchdown would be NFL record breaker number 14, but the play was ruled a running play instead of a pass since it was a lateral pitch behind the line, not a forward pass beyond the line of scrimmage. I didn’t mind at all. I thought it was cool to have one career carry and score a touchdown, going one-for-one. We were winning at 9-3 and I was happy.
In the next game, I refused to be tackled against the Redskins. It was fun to watch the film in the meetings the next day. I was running over people, through people, and by people. I had 6 catches for a career-high 160 yards and broke the NFL record by scoring two TDs, to set the mark at 15. We were 10-3 with three games to go.
The next two games were come-from-behind wins to beat the Broncos and the Dolphins. They weren’t pretty, but we were tough and showed determination to win as a team. When things weren’t going our way, we kept fighting, didn’t lose faith, and turned it around just in time for the W.
Although I was sharply focused on football, I’m never too busy for my family. It was Christmas time. I had a lot to be thankful for and wanted to get some shopping done for the holiday season. The only thing was, if I went shopping at the mall, I would get mobbed for autographs and would be stuck signing everything for hours and not get any gift shopping done. I told my buddy Dana Parenteau and he had an idea. He offered to get me a costume but the deal was, if he got it, I had to wear it no matter what. I took the deal and he came back with a pair of white sunglasses, a black ZZ Top hat, and a huge fake dark mustache and sideburns. I kept my word, put on a black shirt, pants, and sport coat to match, and went to the mall with Dana. At 6´6˝, 260 pounds, sporting a ridiculously huge mustache and sideburns, people stared at me like I was a big creep, but they left me alone so I was okay. Dana and I got all our shopping done and pulled it off!
Now that I had the Christmas shopping out of the way, I was jacked up for the regular-season finale against my hometown Bills. This time we were home at Gillette Stadium. We were now 12-3 and wanted the win to gain home-field advantage through the playoffs as well as even more momentum.
Despite being in our own backyard, we somehow came out flat and were quickly losing 21–0 in the first quarter. This was the same Bills team that gave us our first loss of the season. These were the same Bills who we had had a 21–0 lead against and couldn’t stop them from coming back to beat us. Now it was our turn. We weren’t going to lose again to these guys and went on to score 49 unanswered points to win 49–21.
That game was very special for me because I was competing with the Saints’ Jimmy Graham for the NFL single-season yardage record for tight end. Jimmy played earlier that day and finished the regular season with 1,310 yards, breaking the previous mark, set in 1980 by Kellen Winslow of the San Diego Chargers. I had already scored two touchdowns to set the NFL record at 17 but I wanted the yardage record, too.
With only 1:30 left in the game and with us up 49–21, I had 86 yards in the game, which had my total at 1,305 yards. I was five yards short of Graham’s total. I asked Coach Belichick, Coach O’Brien, and our quarterback Brian Hoyer (Tom was out since we had a huge lead and the game was just about over) to throw it up for a fade route so I could go get it. Both coaches okayed it and Brian, who I had great chemistry with the previous year in training camp, threw me a perfect 22-yarder to break the record and set the mark at 1,327. My 17 touchdowns and 1,327 receiving yards both still stand today and I couldn’t have been more proud to score more touchdowns and rack up more yards than any other tight end in NFL history. I appreciated very much that Coach Belichick and Coach O’Brien, who are so team-first oriented, had rewarded me with that last pass. To set those record marks against my Bills made it even sweeter.
The records were cool and all, but I wanted us to win the Super Bowl more than I did anything else. If we had lost that game, the records would have felt hollow, but we won and I felt great.
So now we were 13-3, the top seed in the AFC, and would have home-field advantage in the playoff games leading to the Super Bowl. We had been in a similar situation last year, going into our first playoff game 14-2 and a hot team at home, before suffering a humiliating, bitter loss to the Jets. We had had to live with that all off-season. This was our chance to erase that feeling and we were going to make the most of it.
Tom came out on fire and couldn’t miss. He was in the zone, and I got the fever. Tom threw three perfect touchdown passes in the first half to take us up 35–7, and we never let Tim Tebow and the Broncos get back in the game. We won 45–10, and I had 10 catches for 145 yards and 3 TDs. I was knocking tacklers down and they couldn’t stop me. I knew we were Super Bowl bound. But to get there, we would have to beat the Baltimore Ravens.
The Ravens were a tough, hard-nosed, physical team. It wasn’t pretty and tons of fun like it had been against the Broncos, but we pulled it off and barely got the win, 23–20. What neither I nor anyone else knew at the time was that I had torn my ankle ligament and would need surgery to repair it. It happened in the third quarter and I felt something pop. I was dragging the tackler and my ankle got caught and turned outward underneath him. I knew instantly I was hurt, but I wasn’t going to let anything stop me from doing my part to win the game. We had to win this game to get to the Super Bowl, and I wasn’t going to sit on the sideline and watch us lose. So after the play I had the trainer tape up the ankle and went back in to finish.
We barely got the win but we were sure thrilled to have it. When the clock ticked down to zero and the game was over, it was one of the happiest moments of my life. I had grown up watching Tom Brady and Coach Belichick in historic Super Bowls. Now I was a part of a Brady-Belichick Super Bowl team. I was living the dream. It was an unreal feeling.
We would face the New York Giants in Super Bowl XLVI, in Indianapolis. The same Giants who had beaten the Patriots in the Super Bowl four years earlier.
I was so excited in the locker room after the AFC Championship that when a reporter from the ESPN Deportes Channel interviewed me in Spanish and I didn’t follow what he was saying, I answered, “Sí . . . yo soy fiesta!”
I meant to say, “I am going to party,” and instead I mistakenly said, “I am party.” However you say it, and as much as I wanted to party, the reality was I had a big problem. The doctors told Drew and my dad that it would be highly improbable that I would be able to play in the Super Bowl, but I didn’t care what they said. I knew I could take any amount of ankle pain for one game. There was no way this was going to stop me from playing in the Super Bowl. This could be my only chance ever! This was my shot to help us win it all and I wasn’t going to let everyone down.
I had two weeks to get healthy enough to play in the big game. I spent the first week in a walking boot and wasn’t able to practice until the following Thursday, three days before the game. I spent the whole time doing everything I could to strengthen my ankle and recover as much strength in it as I could. It was a terrible break that instead of being superstrong, at my best, like I was right before the injury, I could barely put any pressure on my ankle.
I had been through rehabbing before so I knew the drill. I did all kinds of pool therapy for it and constant ankle exercises. The good news on Thursday was that I was able to jog on it and it didn’t hurt unless I tried to accelerate or plant hard on it to cut. I ran routes on air (without someone covering me) and it hurt, but I was encouraged by the progress. I could run and that was good enough for me.
Come game day, I didn’t care what percent recovered I was, how explosive I was—whatever. Once you get on the field, you either make the play or you don’t—no excuses. Everyone out there has some type of pain they are dealing with and I was no different. We taped up the ankle and it was bulky. It felt funky at first but after a few plays, I got used to it and forgot it was there. This was my dream; this was everything I wanted and worked so hard for. I was so close, only sixty minutes of winning football away.
I had a lot of adrenaline, which got me through the blocking, which I could handle well. Where I struggled was with my explosiveness and change of direction. Through the first three quarters, the game was a low-scoring defensive battle. In the second quarter, I had one catch for 20 yards on a drive that started on our two-yard line and we went all 98 yards for a touchdown and a 10–9 lead. My second target from Tom came at the start of the fourth quarter, at which point we had the lead at 17–15.
It was first and ten at our 43-yard line. I ran a deep route and had a step on the linebacker Chase Blackburn. Tom did an amazing job to escape the pass rush and heave it downfield. The ball was up for grabs. Anytime I have a linebacker covering me one-on-one for a jump ball, I like my chances. I stopped running downfield to jump up for the ball and Chase jumped up for the ball as well. He got it, I didn’t. Interception. I had been training my whole life and just had the best regular season of any NFL tight end ever. This guy had been cut and out of work two months ago, in the middle of the season, and yet here he was fifty yards downfield trying to cover me. I was supposed to make that catch. To his credit, Chase outjumped me and made the play. He is an immortal Giant, a Super Bowl hero. And deservedly so.
As for me, all of my training, my working out, my running, my lifting, my physical therapy to rehab my back, all of it was so that I could make that one play. If I had made that play, we would have been in scoring position and I believe would have won that game. But “if” is for losers and I make no excuses. I got beat in front of the whole world in the biggest game of my life and it was no one’s fault but mine. I let my teammates and everyone in my corner down, and it hurt bad.
Chase had intercepted the ball at their nine-yard line and from there we couldn’t get anything going offensively. The Giants ended up having the ball with second and goal at our six-yard line with a minute left in the game. Up 17–15, New York could run down the clock and score with no time left. So we let the Giants score from six yards out to give us a chance with a minute left to come back from a 21–17 deficit.
We moved the ball from our 20-yard line to our 49-yard line for the final play. Tom launched a Hail Mary into the end zone. If we catch it, we win, if we don’t, well, we lose. The ball came down and bounced off a player toward me. I tried to reach it but it was just out of my grasp. Once again, I had a chance to make the big catch to win the game and couldn’t make the play. We lost, and it hurt.
After the game, guys were devastated, some crying, others in shock. All of our hard work, everything we went through for the season, wasn’t enough. We came so close only to lose. I kept replaying those two plays in my head over and over again as if I could redo the play and this time catch it. It was very hard to accept. If only I jumped higher on the interception. If only I didn’t slow down when the ball bounced off the pile and I kept going, I could have reached it. The hard reality was that the game was over, I didn’t make both plays, and I had to accept it. I just wanted to get it out of my mind.
The season was over, but as I walked out of that locker room, I believed without any doubt whatsoever that we would be back for another Super Bowl and have another shot at the greatest sports title in the world.
My family and friends were waiting for me after the game. My ankle hurt and I was miserable about that and how our season had ended. I had two options: go home and cry about it, or go party with my crew. I opted to go party. The Patriots had arranged an after party for the players and bused over those who wanted to go. I went with my dad, brothers, and friends. I got into Party Rocker mode and before long, felt no pain, either mental or physical. I got crazy, which is normal for the Party Rockers. Someone shot video of me with my shirt off, jumping, dancing, chest bumping, and looking wild with my family. It was all over the Internet and I took plenty of criticism for it.
I didn’t think it was fair but I don’t let haters bother me one bit. The way I saw it, I had had the best regular season any tight end in the history of the NFL ever had. I had worked my butt off and did everything I could to help my team win. We won the AFC Championship and lost a hard-fought game to Eli Manning and the Giants, who played great. My ankle was killing me after playing hurt and I was going to have surgery in a few days, then deal with that rehab hassle. Yeah, we lost, I didn’t make the big play on two near misses, and it hurt bad, but I knew I was going to be back and I wanted to deal with it my way, the way that works for me, which is to party with my family and have a good time. With all the hard work I put in that year, I felt I had earned the right to party.
Nevertheless, if it pissed you off, it might make you feel better to know I woke up the next morning with a heck of a hangover.